How to build and use telegram-cli client for Linux

Mohammad Hafiz mypapit Ismail

You can actually send Telegram message from command-line interface / bash in Linux using an unofficial “telegram-cli“ client by Vitali Valtman (vysheng)

Obtaining and Compiling telegram-cli

But first, before sending telegram messages, you need to build the client. You may start by installing its dependencies

 sudo git apt-get install libreadline-dev libconfig-dev libssl-dev lua5.2 liblua5.2-dev libevent-dev libjansson-dev libpython-dev make

Then, you can get the latest telegram-cli client from vysheng GitHub

 git clone --recursive https://github.com/vysheng/tg.git && cd tg

Afterwards, you may configure ‘telegram-cli’ and compile it

./configure
make

Alternative Download
Alternatively, you can download Telegram source code from my server:

  1. https://mypapit.net/pub/telegram-cli/tg.tar.bz2
  2. https://mypapit.net/pub/telegram-cli/tg.tar.xz

 

Running telegram-cli

After finished compiling telegram-cli, you may try and start using telegram.

bin/telegram-cli -k tg-server.pub

For first time use, you may need to key in the authorization code, the code will be sent to your mobile device to allow ‘telegram-cli’ to log as your username.

bin/telegram-cli -u  -k tg-server.pub

In my experience you may need to replace the +[country_code] phone-number with ’00’. so if your phone number includes country code is +60123456789, then you must replace it with 0060123456789 (however, your mileage may vary.

bin/telegram-cli -u 00123456789 -k tg-server.pub

Once the authorization CODE has been entered, you are free to use telegram. Telegram use the concept of ‘peer’ (contact) to send messages instead of phone number. So in order to get a list of your peer, you need to run “contact_list” command.

telegram-cli-contact-list

> contact_list
John_T_Doe
Jane_doe_2
Warrick_Brown
Mark_Nelson

To send message to a peer/contact (for example to Warrick Brown), just type

> msg Warrick_Brown "wassup, dude? want to hang out today?"

To quit, you can type

#telegram-client
> safe_quit

NOTE: IF YOU FAIL TO COMPILE TELEGRAM FROM GITHUB
If you find it difficult or failed to compile telegram-cli from GitHub, then you can download this telegram-cli source code from my server which is tested to compile under Raspbian Jessie, Debian Jessie, Ubuntu 14.04 LTS and Ubuntu 16.04 LTS.

Alternative Telegram source code:

  1. https://mypapit.net/pub/telegram-cli/tg.tar.bz2
  2. https://mypapit.net/pub/telegram-cli/tg.tar.xz

How to quickly become firewall expert with UFW !

Mohammad Hafiz mypapit Ismail

Uncomplicated Firewall (UFW) is a helper tool which allows you to quickly setup iptables firewall in any Ubuntu server. It is installed by default and it allows you to secure your server at no time!

Basic UFW

Basic UFW: Check Status
You can check UFW by running this command. The verbose argument prints additional information such as UFW profiles, logging settings.

The ‘numbered’ argument prints the list of rules with line number. I’ll explain later on the use of this feature.

sudo ufw status
sudo ufw status verbose
sudo ufw status  numbered

Basic UFW: Enable and Disable Firewall
You can easily enable and disable firewall by specifying ‘disable’ and ‘enable’ argument.

Warning : Please do not enable UFW if you’re connecting using SSH connection to your Ubuntu box, you might be disconnected.

sudo ufw disable
sudo ufw enable

Basic UFW: Setting up default rule and Enabling SSH
A lot of you might be connecting to Ubuntu box using SSH connections, so the first step is to setup a default rule and enabling SSH connection.

Deny incoming connection

sudo ufw default deny incoming

Allow incoming SSH connection 

sudo ufw allow ssh

Alternatively you can write:

sudo ufw allow 22/tcp

Finally, enable firewall

sudo ufw enable

You can check the firewall rules by running 

sudo ufw status

Basic UFW: Enabling other service: HTTP, HTTPS

Enabling web server port and https is as easy as running

sudo ufw allow http
sudo ufw allow https

Basic UFW: Deleting rule
You can delete UFW rule by running

sudo ufw delete allow https

or by specifying its port and protocol

sudo ufw delete allow 443/tcp

Additionally you could also delete rule using its number by running “ufw status numbered” first

sudo ufw status numbered

ufw status numbered
Status: active

     To                         Action      From
     --                         ------      ----
[ 1] 22                         ALLOW IN    Anywhere
[ 2] 22/tcp                     ALLOW IN    Anywhere
[ 3] 443                        ALLOW IN    Anywhere
[ 4] 22 (v6)                    ALLOW IN    Anywhere (v6)
[ 5] 22/tcp (v6)                ALLOW IN    Anywhere (v6)
[ 6] 443 (v6)                   ALLOW IN    Anywhere (v6)

Then pick a firewall rule based on its number to delete, I picked number 3 and 6, because I want to delete https rule

sudo ufw delete 3
sudo ufw delete 6

UFW will print a confirmation prompt and you can continue deleting the firewall rules

/home/mypapit# ufw delete 6
Deleting:
 allow 443
Proceed with operation (y|n)? y   
Rule deleted (v6)

/home/mypapit# ufw delete 3
Deleting:
 allow 443
Proceed with operation (y|n)? y
Rule deleted

Intermediate UFW

Intermediate UFW: Deny access from ip address or ip block
You can prevent certain ip address or ip blocks / subnets from reaching your server by running:

sudo ufw deny from 172.18.44.12

Deny an ip address subnet

sudo ufw deny from 172.18.44.0/24

Deny an ip address subnet, example #2

sudo ufw deny from 172.16.0.0/16

Intermediate UFW: Allow services to be connected from certain ip address or subnet
In this case, I will only allow certain ip address to connect to my SSH port.

First we delete the old – “allow all” SSH rule

sudo ufw disable
sudo ufw delete allow ssh

Then we add ip address to be allowed to connect to SSH port

sudo ufw allow from 192.168.20.40 to any port ssh

Alternatively, you could also specify port number and protocol

sudo ufw allow from 192.168.20.40 to any port 22 proto tcp

Only allow SSH connections from certain subnets

sudo ufw allow from 192.168.20.0/24 to any port 22 proto tcp

Note: Adding firewall rules to only allow SSH connection from certain subnets would increase the server security, further reducing brute-force attack.

Further Reading: Ubuntu Server Administrator Reference

How to set Android *.apk mime-type for Nginx web server

Mohammad Hafiz mypapit Ismail

Here’s a simple guide on how to add the correct mime-type for Android APK file for Nginx webserver.

sudo nano /etc/nginx/mime.types

In “mime.types” file, add this line within the “types” block


types {
     ...
     ...
     application/vnd.android.package-archive     apk;
     ...
     ...
}

Restart nginx server

sudo service nginx restart

Done!

Generating TLS/SSL Self Signed Certificate for Nginx in Ubuntu LTS

Mohammad Hafiz mypapit Ismail

This post concerns on generating self-signed TLS/SSL certificate for Nginx in Ubuntu LTS and assumes that you’ve configured nginx server with a default site.

Step 1: Generate OpenSSL certificate

sudo mkdir /etc/nginx/ssl
sudo openssl req -x509 -nodes -days 365 -newkey rsa:2048 -keyout /etc/nginx/ssl/nginx.key -out /etc/nginx/ssl/nginx.crt


You are about to be asked to enter information that will be incorporated
into your certificate request.
What you are about to enter is what is called a Distinguished Name or a DN.
There are quite a few fields but you can leave some blank
For some fields there will be a default value,
If you enter '.', the field will be left blank.
-----
Country Name (2 letter code) [AU]:US
State or Province Name (full name) [Some-State]:CA
Locality Name (eg, city) []:Palo Alto
Organization Name (eg, company) [Internet Widgits Pty Ltd]:Mypapit LLC
Organizational Unit Name (eg, section) []:Billing
Common Name (e.g. server FQDN or YOUR name) []:Mypapit
Email Address []:mypapit+cert@gmail.com

Step 2: Edit nginx site config

You can edit nginx site config here, replace ‘default’ with your own server config.


sudo nano -c /etc/nginx/sites-enable/default

You will see this server block.


server {
        listen 80;
        listen [::]:80;
        server_name your_domain.com;
        root /var/www/your_domain.com;
        index index.html index.htm;

...
...
}

Add additional line (in italic) 

server {
        listen 80;
        listen [::]:80;

    listen 443 ssl;

       server_name your_domain.com;
        root /var/www/your_domain.com;
      index index.html index.htm;

        ssl_certificate /etc/nginx/ssl/nginx.crt;
        ssl_certificate_key /etc/nginx/ssl/nginx.key;
        ssl_protocols TLSv1 TLSv1.1 TLSv1.2;
        ssl_prefer_server_ciphers on;
        add_header Strict-Transport-Security max-age=31536000;



...
...
}

Save file, and restart nginx server

sudo nginx -t
sudo service nginx restart

Test configuration by going to https://your_domain.com.

Done!

Bonus: Add HSTS header and Serve only TLS

HSTS header

Howto install OwnCloud with NGINX in Ubuntu LTS

Mohammad Hafiz mypapit Ismail

OwnCloud is a PHP-based Cloud-storage web application for remote storage with file synchronization capabilities.

Step 1
You need to install several packages in order to configure OwnCloud with nginx in your server

sudo apt-get -y install nginx-full php5-fpm php5-sqlite

Step 2: Download Owncloud
Download Owncloud, replace $OWNCLOUD_VER with the latest Owncloud version.

export OWNCLOUD_VER="8.1.0"
cd /var/www/
sudo wget -c https://download.owncloud.org/community/owncloud-${OWNCLOUD-VER}.tar.bz2

Step 3: Extract Owncloud
This will extract owncloud to /var/www/owncloud/

cd /var/www/
tar jxvf owncloud-${OWNCLOUD-VER}.tar.bz2

Step 4: Setup Nginx
You need to setup NGINX

cd /etc/nginx/sites-available
sudo nano -c /etc/nginx/sites-available/owncloud

Step 4a: Setup ‘owncloud’ nginx site

Please change server_name directive to your own ip address or your own domain.
You can also download textfile and upload it directly to your server: http://pastebin.com/2P8h1zNB

#
#/etc/nginx/sites-available/owncloud
# 
server {
  listen 80;
server_name cloud.example.com;
server_name 192.168.1.47;

  # Path to the root of your owncloud installation
  root /var/www/owncloud/;
  # set max upload size
  client_max_body_size 10G;
  fastcgi_buffers 64 4K;

  # Disable gzip to avoid the removal of the ETag header
  gzip off;

  # Uncomment if your server is build with the ngx_pagespeed module
  # This module is currently not supported.
  #pagespeed off;

  rewrite ^/caldav(.*)$ /remote.php/caldav$1 redirect;
  rewrite ^/carddav(.*)$ /remote.php/carddav$1 redirect;
  rewrite ^/webdav(.*)$ /remote.php/webdav$1 redirect;

  index index.php;
  error_page 403 /core/templates/403.php;
  error_page 404 /core/templates/404.php;

  location = /robots.txt {
    allow all;
    log_not_found off;
    access_log off;
    }

  location ~ ^/(?:\.htaccess|data|config|db_structure\.xml|README){
    deny all;
    }

  location / {
   # The following 2 rules are only needed with webfinger
   rewrite ^/.well-known/host-meta /public.php?service=host-meta last;
   rewrite ^/.well-known/host-meta.json /public.php?service=host-meta-json last;

   rewrite ^/.well-known/carddav /remote.php/carddav/ redirect;
   rewrite ^/.well-known/caldav /remote.php/caldav/ redirect;

   rewrite ^(/core/doc/[^\/]+/)$ $1/index.html;

   try_files $uri $uri/ /index.php;
   }

   location ~ \.php(?:$|/) {
   fastcgi_split_path_info ^(.+\.php)(/.+)$;
   include fastcgi_params;
   fastcgi_param SCRIPT_FILENAME $document_root$fastcgi_script_name;
   fastcgi_param PATH_INFO $fastcgi_path_info;
	  fastcgi_pass unix:/var/run/php5-fpm.sock;
   }

   location ~* \.(?:jpg|jpeg|gif|bmp|ico|png|css|js|swf)$ {
       expires 30d;
       # Optional: Don't log access to assets
         access_log off;
   }

  }

Step 4b: Enable ‘owncloud’ settings

cd /etc/nginx/sites-enable/
sudo ln -sf ../sites-available/owncloud .
nginx -t
service nginx restart
service php5-fpm restart

Step 5: Finishing off Owncloud setup

cd /var/www/
mkdir /var/www/owncloud/data
chmod 0770 /var/www/owncloud/data
chmod 0770 /var/www/owncloud/lib/private/
sudo chown -R www-data.www-data /var/www/owncloud

Step 6: Goto the IP-Address or domain name of your owncloud installation

First screen
setup-owncloud-first

Welcome to Owncloud
welcome-to-owncloud

Owncloud File Manager and Settings
owncloud-filemanager

What’s Next?

After completing installation you may:

  1. Install Android, iPhone or Desktop client to sync all your files
  2. Install TLS/SSL Certificates to secure your Owncloud connection
  3. Install MariaDB/MySQL for efficient synchronization

Warning: Do not enable Pagespeed and SPDY in OwnCloud

OwnCloud servers does not support PageSpeed and SPDY module, so please disable those extension if its exists within your nginx configuration.

Recommended Owncloud book